EBay share price jumps as profit beat expectations
The figures
EBay will complete its spinoff of PayPal into a separate company in the third quarter of 2015, the company announced in its first earnings results of the year.
Revenue, sales and profits at the online marketplace came in above analysts' estimates – triggering a five per cent rise in its share price in after-hours trading. Expectations had been for earnings to come in at $0.70 per share, yet the e-commerce firm unveiled a healthy $0.77 per share on revenue of $4.45bn (£2.96bn) – a four per cent increase on last year.
Profit recovered from a $2.33bn loss a year ago – when the company took a one-off tax charge – to hit $4.45bn.
As with other American companies reporting this week, eBay struggled with a strengthening dollar which it said "significantly impacted first quarter results".
Why it's interesting
With more details given on eBay's spinoff of PayPal, investors were granted a glimpse into how the company would fare without the payment platform which will be allowed to work with any other e-commerce company following the split.
As part of the split's operating agreement, PayPal will not be allowed to create its own marketplace will eBay will be prevented from implementing its own payment platform.
Despite encouraging first quarter results, eBay looks to be in for a tough time with cash infusions from PayPal which recorded marketplace revenue of $2.11bn in the period – beating eBay's own $2.07bn.
What eBay said
I feel very good about the performance of our teams at eBay and PayPal. Each business is executing well with greater focus and operating discipline as we prepare to separate eBay and PayPal into independent publicly traded companies.
– Chief executive John Donahoe
In short
A strong dollar isn't enough to stop eBay reporting better-than-expected results in the first quarter.